The carmaker has been banned from selling vehicles in South Korean for the moment and fined 17.8 million won (14.3 million euros) there.

Last month, the South Korean government revoked certification for 80 model variants of VW, Audi and Bentley vehicles on grounds that the carmaker fabricated certificates of vehicle emissions and noise-levels.

At that time, Volkswagen described the ruling as “most severe” and said it would consider a legal challenge, but has since decided to try to achieve certification for the affected models in order to resume sales quickly.